


Aftermath

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, LaxLu Day 2016, Mentions of past abuse, Pre-Relationship, budding friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7922356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following his fight with Raven Tail, Lucy seeks Laxus out. Written for LaxLu Day 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is, my contribution to Laxus/Lucy Day 2016! I had another couple oneshots planned as well that are companion pieces to this, but I just couldn’t get them done in time because I’m a filthy procrastinator.

Chapati Lola's astonished voice blared over the loudspeaker, announcing Raven Tail's sanctioning, but the majority of the Fairy Tail guild was oblivious. Almost the moment that the winner of the match was announced, both the participating teams and a fair number of the spectating members charged from their reserved boxes and rushed down to the hypogeum. The day's events weren't over yet, but with the chaos Ivan's underhanded tactics caused, it was likely to be some time before the game managers were prepared to announce the next matchup.

The forerunners arrived at the gateway just as Laxus cleared the sand and stepped from the bright sunlight of the arena into the dim underground hallway. Lucy was at the back of the herd, and so bore witness to Natsu, Cana, Mirajane, and the Thunder Legion all but flinging themselves at Laxus, shouting praise and congratulations. She almost smiled at their eagerness— but Laxus's dark expression curbed her own enthusiasm.

"Laxus, that was amazing!" Freed exclaimed. He was clinging to one of Laxus's arms, and Evergreen the other, with Bixlow standing at the tall man's back, slinging an arm around Laxus's shoulder from behind. It was not an unusual look for them. In the time since their return from Tenrou Island, Lucy had gotten used to how clingy the Thunder Legion tended to be with their leader; from her observation, he usually tolerated them hanging all over him with a fair amount of patience. At the moment, though, from her vantage point further up the hallway, he looked desperately claustrophobic.

She was not really surprised. For the last couple of days, she had been thinking about a story Master Makarov told, about a frail little boy whose father forced a dangerous experiment on him using a rare and volatile type of magic to make him more powerful. About how before the Battle of Fairy Tail, Laxus seemed almost desperate to prove his strength. About Flare, and bruises all over her body that Lucy knew didn't come from their battle. About Ivan Dreyar, a man obsessed with power, and about the son he raised.

The conclusions all her speculation brought her to weren't pretty, and she hoped she was wrong, but given the way Laxus looked even more like a walking thundercloud than usual, she didn't think she was.

The rest of their friends seemed oblivious, though.

"That was so badass!" Natsu shouted, shoving Mirajane out of the way hard enough that she almost fell to the ground. "You gotta fight _me_ next, Laxus!"

Laxus wrenched free of his friends. "Piss off, Natsu," he growled, pushing the younger man aside. And Freed was still trying to grab at him; Lucy's heart went out to both men as Laxus yanked away and Freed recoiled from the snarl on his friend's face. The blond's reaction was blindly instinctive, bordering on panic, and Lucy was relieved when the others finally started to catch his mood and step away.

He pushed through the crowd, brushed between her and Max, and surged away down the hall and out of sight. The rest of the guild stared after him, drop-jawed.

"Guess he hasn't changed that much after all," Max said, sounding more than a little offended. "What a dick."

"That's not very fair," she said, not as sternly as she meant to. She didn't really blame him— or any of the others— for not catching onto Laxus's frame of mind right now. Max, like the vast majority of their generation, was an orphan from a pretty young age, and had a great relationship with his parents before their deaths. He, like most of their friends, had no idea what it was like to have a father who terrified you, a parent you'd flinch from over the smallest sign of displeasure. This was not something that Max or any of the others would have any context for.

But she did. She _did_ , and she hated that she did, because despite how bad their relationship was, she didn't want to compare her own father in any way to the monster who raised Laxus. But the fact was, she was pretty sure that she was the only person in the guild who had perspective on this issue. And so when the Thunder Legion made to rush after their beloved leader, she threw out a hand and restrained Freed before he could get past her.

"Miss Lucy…?" Freed addressed her curiously, annoyed and distracted and clearly confused by her interference.

"Give him some time," she said.

"Why?" Evergreen demanded. "Lucy, what are you talking about?"

"He just fought Ivan," Lucy said, voice pitched low in the hopes that the curious crowd of their friends wouldn't overhear too much. "He just fought his _father_ , Freed."

Freed's eyes widened, Evergreen's narrowed, and Bixlow, to her surprise, was the one to speak.

"Cosplayer's right," he said. "Let him have some time to himself."

"But—"

Bixlow cut Evergreen off before she could vocalize any further protest. "We shouldn't bother him," he said firmly.

She adjusted her glasses in an irritable little nervous gesture, all her muscles tense. "Isn't that just why we should go after him?" she said. "He shouldn't be alone right now."

"I'm inclined to agree," Freed said, "but what can we do to help? I confess, I'm at a bit of a loss."

Bixlow shook his head. "Nah. We should at least give him a few minutes."

Whatever Freed said in response, Lucy didn't hear. She had slipped around the corner and hurried away up the hallway in the direction Laxus had turned. She agreed with Freed— Laxus shouldn't be alone right now. Everyone had their own ways of dealing with things, and from what little she'd seen of Laxus, he seemed to enjoy a certain amount of solitude, but isolation didn't help things like this.

Was it selfish of her to want to be the one to check on him? The Thunder Legion were his long-time friends, surely they were better qualified. But something in Lucy desperately wanted to speak to him right now. It wasn't an urge she'd had before, this blistering need to seek Laxus out, but it was irresistible. And yes, the more she thought about it, it was selfish. A compulsion probably born of the death of her own father, a loss that had, in all technicality, actually occurred almost five months ago, but to her was fresher than a fortnight. There were a lot of tangled-up emotions she held surrounding her father, grief and guilt and anger and fear and she didn't even _know_ what else, and she'd shoved that all back in her heart for the sake of participating in the Games with a smile on her face, but in Laxus she thought she might find someone else who understood about how complicated family could be. Someone she didn't have to tiptoe around and speak nicely of blood family because they'd lost theirs tragically. Someone she didn't need to pretend for.

It was absurd. Not the time for it. _Selfish_. She had no business fretting about her own father and her own feelings when Laxus had just this very moment struck down the parent who had in all likelihood abused him for years. But even though she knew that, she couldn't suppress the desire to connect with him. To talk to someone, even for just a short while, who would _get it_.

Did that make her an awful person, wanting that right now?

* * *

She found him just a few corridors over, in one of the little multipurpose rooms, the door half-ajar. He was sitting on a bench against the wall, eyes trained on the floor in front of him, and his expression seemed neutral. His eyebrows were doing a better than usual job of trying to fuse together on the bridge of his nose, but otherwise he seemed calm.

Operative word being _seemed_. A few moments' observation showed her the way his hands were clasped on his knees, knuckles dead white, and his breathing was a little _too_ deep and even, like he was focusing especially hard on keeping it steady. It broke her heart a little to know that she was right about his confrontation with his father impacting him so strongly. She wanted an ally in the Complicated Relationship With Parent club, but not like this. Lucy bit her lip, _hard_ , debating whether she should leave him alone and go back to join the others or—

"You gonna stand there all day?" he asked suddenly, catching her off guard.

 _Dragon slayer senses…_ Lucy kicked herself. She should have known he'd be aware of her presence.

Stepping properly around the door, she sat down on the edge of the bench; she left a few feet between them, giving him space. His body had gone even more rigid than before, the tendons in his arms standing out like cables. He seemed to be fighting not to bolt from her presence, and Lucy didn't think he'd appreciate her sitting any closer.

"I think I bought you a few minutes, at least," she said. "At least, Freed and the others will keep everyone from mobbing you for a little while. Evergreen might try to bust her way in here, but hopefully they'll all be too busy arguing over whether to leave you alone to pester you for a bit."

"You… told people to leave me alone?" He cocked his head curiously, studying her with an inscrutable look.

She nodded.

"Why'd you do a thing like that?" he asked.

She gave him a slow look out of the corner of her eye, wondering how to approach the subject. Laxus, from what she could tell, was pretty upfront about things. Well, _blunt past the point of rudeness_ was probably a better way of putting it. He'd probably appreciate directness.

"You just fought your father," she said frankly, trying and failing to maintain eye contact when he looked away sharply. "I thought you could probably use some time to catch your breath."

"After fighting those chumps? _Please,_ " he scoffed, but it was forced.

"I'm not talking about physically," she said sternly, "and you know it. All those people out there… well, you know their stories. Half of them can't remember their parents' names, and the other half can't imagine their parents being anything but wonderful. But I know what it's like to have a rotten father. What it feels like to _confront_ a rotten father after he's hurt your real family."

"Real family, huh?" His tone was contemplative, those golden eyes turned away from her to focus intently on the floor in front of him.

She nodded. "No matter what happened in the past, everyone knows your true feelings, Laxus. You wouldn't have come for us on Tenrou Island if you didn't care about this guild."

He snorted. "Perceptive."

"Not the point," she countered.

Laxus's gaze trained on her again, and his eyes narrowed "If you think I need space so much, why are you here, anyway?" he asked.

Lucy let out a sharp little chuckle at her own expense. Why was she even surprised he'd thought of that? Leave it to Laxus to spot her weak point. She wasn't sure if it was perceptiveness or just coincidence, but he'd always seemed to have a gift for targeting the most uncomfortable thought in her head, from the very first time they'd spoken— if you could call his taunting after Phantom's attack a conversation, which she wasn't sure you could. But once again, he'd managed to hit the nail a little too close to the head.

"Because I'm selfish," she replied, shaking her head.

"Huh?"

But she didn't really want to admit how desperate she was for someone- anyone- to share in her messed-up headspace right now. It wasn't the time. This wasn't about her, no matter what her motivations for seeking him out, and she was determined not to make it about her.

"That's… also not the point," she said, fully aware that she was going pink in the face, and very confused as to why. Despite how flustered she felt, she continued, "Look, if you tell me you're fine, then I'll believe you. But I just thought that if you needed to talk at all, it might help to talk to someone who has some… shared perspective. Someone who gets the problems of blood family better than our family full of orphans out there."

One eyebrow raised as he gave her a thoroughly incredulous look. "Not… really the sharing type," he said, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

Lucy shrugged. "Offer still stands."

Silence descended over them as Laxus gave a terse nod. Lucy's eyes were drawn to the way his fingertips tapped out a frenetic rhythm against his knees. His posture was slightly less tense than it had been when she first sat down next to him, but he was still radiating unease.

She wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure if she _should_. This wasn't… this wasn't quite how she expected this encounter to go.

Should she leave? After all, she'd been the one who had made the argument that he needed and deserved time alone to collect himself. And yet she'd come barging in here anyway. But it was also true that dealing with this completely by himself seemed no good either. Or was that just her way of trying to justify her own self-serving desire to talk to him by pretending it was about him somehow? Indecision washed over her.

Just as she was about to stand up and excuse herself, though, Laxus spoke.

"Today was the closest I've been to my father since I was 14," he said, and his voice was even lower than usual, a little rough about the edges. Laxus swallowed hard, and added, "He seemed… smaller than I remember."

Lucy's heart felt oddly compressed in her chest. Her mind flew to a dark Magnolia street, to a struggle to reconcile the sad, pathetic man powerlessly demanding money with the imposing figure whose stiff hands had pulled the strings on her childhood and whose raised voice had once made her flinch with fear.

_He got it._

Considering her words carefully, she said, "I don't think they get smaller. I think we get _bigger_."

The way Laxus looked at her then was unlike any other expression she'd ever seen him wear. There was something akin to surprise, blended with an open, honest vulnerability that was a distinct contrast to the closed, stern face he presented in public.

"Yeah," he said, voice thick. "Maybe."

She smiled. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to lay her hand on his knee or pat him on the shoulder or some other gesture of empathy, but she'd never been very good at initiating physical affection. And anyway, she'd never gotten the impression that Laxus was very fond of being touched by anybody besides his team. So she kept her hands to herself, and limited herself to that, just a smile, just a warm and steady eye contact that didn't embarrass her like it probably should.

Lucy was pretty sure that that was as much as she was going to get out of him today. Maybe what he had said would have sounded insignificant to other ears, but to her, his words carried a heavy weight. Those kinds of admissions were hard enough to make to yourself, let alone anyone else. Coming from Laxus, it seemed to her almost as good as spilling his whole life story. The door had been opened, anyway.

Laxus raised his head suddenly. "They just announced the next match," he said.

"Huh?"

"Wendy's gonna be fighting somebody from Lamia Scale."

 _Dragon slayer senses. Again._ Mr. Lola's commentary had been a low, indistinguishable buzz this far from the arena, to her ears anyway, but it was no surprise that Laxus would be able to hear more clearly.

She jumped to her feet. "I should go check on her before her duel, then!" she said, and rushed to the doorway. But with her hand on the doorframe, she paused, and looked over her shoulder. "I meant what I said about the offer still standing," she told him, catching his gaze again. "If you need to talk about anything at all… I mean, I know you have your team, but if you need to talk to someone who doesn't worship the ground you walk on…"

He snorted, and cut his eyes away, a tiny, reluctant grin tugging at his lips. "Appreciate it, Lucy."

Almost, she left it at that. But she wouldn't be Lucy Heartfilia if she didn't have a troublesome, impish streak in her. With a wry quirk of her eyebrow, she added, "Oh, and by the way…"

"Yeah?"

"You really didn't need to hit Flare that hard."

His head shot up as his eyes locked fully on her face, expression quizzical. "Fla— you mean the chick with the hair?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, 'the chick with the hair.'"

"But… she humiliated you in front of the entire kingdom," he said, visibly baffled. "She _cheated_."

Lucy shrugged. "Does it really matter? It hurt a lot at the time, but it's in the past."

Laxus blinked, and his expression went suddenly, inexplicably masklike and blank. "You're a much more forgiving person than I am."

"Maybe," she said with a frown. "I don't know if I've exactly _forgiven_ her, but… well, I don't want to stay angry."

He didn't say anything, simply nodded. His eyes were resting on her face, but his gaze seemed turned inward, deep in thought.

"Want me to send Freed and the others in?" she asked.

Laxus shook his head absently. "Nah."

She nodded once. "Okay. Take your time."

His expression did not indicate any retreat from whatever internal reflections had drawn him so deeply in, his focus slipping from her face to the floor in a smooth, mindless drop of his gaze. "Right," he said softly.

With a last, soft smile, she slipped from the room, her footsteps picking up pace as she headed back in the direction of the team box, where Wendy was probably preparing for her match.


End file.
